


Three Words and Two Hearts

by sunfair



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Genderswap, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:11:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunfair/pseuds/sunfair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the <a href="http://catchmelike.livejournal.com/1656625.html">girl direction fic fest</a>, <a href="http://catchmelike.livejournal.com/1656625.html?thread=12885041#t12885041">this prompt</a>. Much love to cantgetnoworse for the beta.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Three Words and Two Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [girl direction fic fest](http://catchmelike.livejournal.com/1656625.html), [this prompt](http://catchmelike.livejournal.com/1656625.html?thread=12885041#t12885041). Much love to cantgetnoworse for the beta.

Zayn almost doesn't join the guys in going to the club at all, and once they arrive she nearly leaves straight away. It's not the worst place she's been paid to sit and drink in, but it's in the running. They're marched, _paraded_ into VIP and cameras flash and suddenly there are sparklers and bottle service and it's all so superficially gross. There's a girl in a bikini and fur-covered boots on a platform at the far end of the room hula-hooping; when she pauses to light the hula hoop on fire, Zayn sucks down another vodka cranberry so fast it makes her a little dizzy. Harry and Louis and Niall start dancing in their little closed-off section while the other people in the club (boys in too much cologne trying too hard, girls pretending not to care) stare awkwardly. Zayn grabs her smokes, making her way to the door.

 

Outside she meets a guy who doesn't immediately make her want to put her fist through the wall; he's tall and tattooed and makes eye contact when he lights her cigarette. His eyes are so pretty she misses his name but it's something suitable; Tristan or Sebastian or whatever. She chats with him long enough to imagine peeling his girl jeans right off his legs, asks him if he'd like to leave, and he follows her back inside for her coat.

 

She leaves him briefly at the roped-off divider. Back at their table, Liam is eyeing her miserably while she gathers her handbag and her jacket.

 

"That guy? Really?"

 

Zayn doesn't answer, just shoots Liam a pointed look, daring him to continue. He doesn't, but his gaze is clouded over with sadness and Zayn wills herself to snuff out the wistful pang it evokes, turning to leave.

 

(Zayn never learns his name. He smokes most of her weed before they even kiss, and keeps trying to slow her down once they do, but she didn't pull him for hand-holding and conversation, she just wants him to fuck her. It's frustrating and annoying and he's awkward and clumsy with it, so she takes over, pushing him onto his back to ride him, but barely begins to work up a decent rhythm before he's through. He makes an attempt at apologizing while Zayn finds his clothes for him. She walks him to the door before he even gets his shirt back on, letting him hop awkwardly into the hotel hallway, fighting to put his feet into his shoes.)

 

After a shower she very nearly calls Liam, but holds off, whining his name into her pillow instead when she comes around her fingers, pressing them in deep where she aches.

 

*

 

What nobody knows or understands is that Liam was hers _first_. She wanted him from the moment she first saw him at bootcamp, boyish smile and floppy hair, and he was so easy, so immediately into her; she can't imagine how they didn't get caught somewhere amongst the toilets, the storage closets, the empty stairwells. He'd keep her so long that she'd almost be late, showing up with her legs still quivering, her mouth kiss-bruised and skin flushed, still tasting him when she swallowed.

 

Then on the last day, they were made into bandmates.

 

Zayn knew what Liam was going to say to her before he said it, and if he hadn't, she would have most certainly said the same to him. The fact they fucked again afterward was meant to be a farewell of sorts; Zayn supposes every time since then has just been another failed attempt.

 

*

 

There's a cycle to it, a pattern; it's imprecise but it's there, and it's on both of them, as much as Zayn would like to think otherwise. She's the opposite of surprised when Liam piles into the van right behind her the next morning, lingering as he clicks his seatbelt so that his fingers can brush the sliver of skin at her hip between her skirt and her top. She shifts a little, but not away, never away, letting her thighs part a tiny bit more so that her bare knee touches his jeans. They're en route to a radio interview, then a signing, then soundcheck, and Liam continues to find ways to subtly touch her, standing beside her in photos so that his hand can rest at her hip, on her waist, lingering at her back. He passes her a bottle of water, hands her a microphone, making sure their fingers can touch, just shy of too long. He helps her tuck her earpieces back in so he can brush the back of her neck, sending her skin blooming into shivers, her eyes closing as the sharp ache of want pulses through her.

 

*

 

The bitch of it is, Zayn genuinely likes Danielle. She didn't even have to try, because Danielle is great; she's sharp and talented and stunning and so fucking sweet, in a way Zayn has never even been able to pretend to be. When Liam met her (which was entirely Harry's fault; Zayn has spent every day since blaming Harry for every last thing she can) Zayn definitely believed it was all over with Liam, and relief fought its way through the dull, persistent ache of disappointment and envy. She watched as autumn rolled in and the air cooled; Liam moved on and went on dates and fell in love and Zayn poured her heart into the competition week after week.

 

Except that Liam would still look at her sometimes, in rare moments without cameras or company, the way that he used to, and Zayn would be helpless to stop the way her entire body would react, going pliant with longing. He still would let his touch linger, at her shoulder or her arm as they'd pass, and sit too close to her, squeezing her knee before standing up. After weeks with only cursory embraces, they kissed one cold night behind the house, Zayn's head spinning so fast she thought she might fall over. Liam pushed her against the brick, his whimpering muffled in the tight press of their mouths, his hands squeezing hard at her hips, murmuring apologies between shaky, visible breaths.

 

"Never be sorry," she said, and meant it completely.

 

On Halloween she repeated it, quiet and strained into his ear while he fucked her desperately in the coat closet on the second floor. It had been nearly a month. After that, it was never more than a week if they could help it.

 

*

 

Liam pushes her against the countertop, hands curling under her backside to scoop her up and set her onto it, groaning into her mouth. Zayn is already working his shirt open, shifting to part her thighs and fold her legs around him. They have twenty minutes and they're supposed to be changing clothes, and thank fuck for having her own dressing room with its own bathroom. Zayn braces herself with one hand on the counter, the other in Liam's hair, but he's already moving away from her mouth, licking and sucking and biting down her chest, his hands scrambling under her skirt at her hips, roughly tugging her underwear down and off. He lifts her thighs over his shoulders as he leans down and she tips back a little, gasping, grabbing a fistful of his hair when his mouth meets her pussy, warm and wet and eager with his lips and tongue. She makes an utterly obscene sound, answered with a muffled groan, and Liam pushes his tongue into her, swirling up to lap quick and constant at her clit. Zayn's already breathing quick, and she doesn't even care; Liam's holding her open with one hand and teasing her with two fingers of the other, dragging them against her folds with the slightest pressure, and she hates and loves that he knows how instantly crazy that makes her. By the time he finally slides them inside her, she's biting back whimpers, and with a perfectly calculated curl and push, Zayn comes, heels digging into Liam's back.

 

*

 

On tour it seems easier; nothing feels permanent, leaving cities and faces and places behind. Even the times Danielle visits, Zayn isn't too bothered about it. It's expected, and it makes Liam happy, and it gives Zayn a good reality check, letting her recalibrate. He always wants her desperately the moment he's free again, and Zayn tries to make him wait, to put some temporal distance to it, to draw clean lines, but he always wins her over sooner than she expects, and everything melts into a blur again.

 

Home is the worst, where the spring only gives grey days, where the lies are more calculated, more intentional. Zayn has horrible dreams of being found out, and wakes up ill from guilt and regret, with no one to call. Liam texts her even from his holiday, and it's dangerous and stupid and she hates it, envisioning scenarios of romantic Italian backdrops to screaming matches, and then hates herself for even thinking of them.

 

When he returns she breaks it off, refusing to even discuss it, ignoring his near constant pleading. They have press to do, appearances, shows, and sometimes Danielle turns up randomly, just to say hi, because she can, because her boyfriend is home from tour and she wants to see him as much as possible. Zayn gets it, but it makes enclosed spaces like the van a tumultuous trap, fraught with closed throats and bitten-back tears. Zayn wears her darkest sunglasses and stares out the window and not at Liam's arm and the curve of his shoulder and the way Danielle fits against him. 

 

They park in a garage and everyone piles out and Zayn hangs back, needing a cigarette more than she ever has, letting her band and her heartbreak walk away. She steps into a concrete corner, where the shadows hide her shaking hands, where she leans against the wall for a long moment after lighting her smoke, her sobs absorbed into her palm. When she hears footsteps approaching she rights herself, taking another long drag and standing tall, swiping at her face hastily. Liam rounds the corner so fast that Zayn startles, dropping her cigarette as she's backed against the cement, enclosed in his arms as they squeeze what little air is left from her lungs. She can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything but cling tightly in return, Liam's face tucked against her neck where her heart pounds hard.

"This isn't over," he says miserably, and she chases the embrace even as he leaves, disappearing just as quickly as he arrived.

*

He sets her down and turns her around, bending her over the countertop, pushing into her from behind. Zayn presses one hand to the mirror, meeting her reflection, stifling her urgent cries against the inside of her arm. Liam's hips collide with hers as he fucks her hard and fast, his cock stretching her, his hands at her hips, holding her in place. Her knees give, just a little, her climax still echoing through her in tiny aftershocks, even as her next rises rapidly. Liam's jeans are at his thighs and his zipper drags against the back of her leg and he slows, his rhythm faltering, before snapping his hips hard as he comes, stilling deep inside her.

She rises slowly onto her toes and stretches her fingers, imagining that the mirror might give, that she might fall right into herself, into them, into the silence that envelops them, save the harsh rise and fall of their breath.


End file.
